The New Year's Resolution Blog Entry.

There was no musical theatre program at my college. That isn't to say that there were no musical theatre-themed classes at SUNY New Paltz. There were several, and I took them all. There was just no Musical Theatre concentration as far as majors go.

While I was there I took Voice for Theatre (One and Two--I took Two twice), Musical Theatre Workshop and Musical Theatre Singing Ensemble (which was this awesome choral class where we did all the big group numbers.)

All the classes focused on acting the song, and not so much on technique. This is a clip from my senior year final, when I did Sally Bowles from Cabaret.



My freshman year a friend of mine named Roxie was taking Musical Theatre Workshop. Her assignment was to hop the train down to the city one day and go to an actual audition. Best Friend Jen and I decided to go with her. We thought it would be fun.

It was an open call for Ragtime, and Jen was a big fan. We had no headshots, and so we printed our best available Facebook profile pictures onto 8 1/2 by 11 paper and slapped together resumes with High School credits on them.

The audition was at Ripley Grier, and in the grand tradition of Open Calls, we were two out of 700 hundred girls and young women, all of whom looked a lot like us. We were there all day, and we didn't get to sing. Instead we were typed out.

But it's our first audition. We are tourists in Times Square, too mesmerized by the flashy billboards and neon lights to notice that it's crowded, nobody seems to know how to walk and it kind of smells funny.

We did one musical a year at SUNY New Paltz, usually the first production of the fall semester. My freshman year auditions were the first week of classes, I really didn't know what I was doing. Sophomore year I made it to the final four girls called back to play Dot in "Sunday in the Park with George." Junior year I got Reno in "Anything Goes," and senior year I played Penny in "Urinetown."

I have a good voice, though I've never been trained, and by the time I left school I was confident that I could hold my own in a musical theatre audition. But after a few years it seemed like I was going to that Ragtime audition over and over again. Sitting in a waiting room among 700 hundred more qualified girls, with a mediocre headshot and not enough musicals on my resume.

I couldn't afford the voice lessons, and what good did they do when I just got typed out every time I got in the room? So I stopped. I was booking film work, and comedy, so I thought that might be enough.

But recently I went to go see a show that got me thinking again. An entertainer a greatly admire just released an album, the contents of which are new arrangements of old musical theatre standards. Little-known Sinatra and Sound of Music stuff, and at the end of the show I got to meet the composer who'd done all the arrangements. The whole thing got me thinking about musical theatre and how much I miss it, and I've decided that this would be my New Year's Resolution.

I am going to book a musical by next year. Maybe not Broadway, but here's hoping. And in reaching for that goal, I'm going to see about voice lessons, and dance classes. I'm really going to try to turn myself back into a musical theatre performer, hopefully minus the pretentiousness.

Game on.

New Headshots!

I've been waiting until the craziness of the holidays to be over before posting my new headshots for all to see.

After my unfortunate encounter with the Bitchy Headshot Photographer Who Shall Not Be Named, I told the story to one of my colleagues at The Restaurant, and he recommended the very talented Keri Shean.

Keri is a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and she'd taken some photos for him and his band. She and I exchanged a couple of messages via Facebook and quickly set up a time and place to meet.

She was great to work with. She really listened to what I wanted the shots to look like, and jumped in with her own suggestions. She was the one who suggested we shoot on the Highline, the above ground railroad tracks that now serves as a park.

We ended up having to push our shoot back a week. It was beautiful weather up until the day we were supposed to meet, and then it was pouring. So we met on the same day next week, only to find the skies frighteningly overcast.

We were only able to shoot for twenty minutes before the rain started. I tore through blouse changes like a house on fire. (I was wearing a flesh-colored tank top underneath everything, but I still got a few uncomfortable stares).

She promised we could meet again if I didn't get what I was looking for, but when she gave me the CD a few days later, I was impressed at how much we got. I ended up choosing all my shots from the pictures we took in those first twenty minutes.

Here they are, still sans-Photoshop to take away the Fiona Apple-esque bags under my eyes. The McNally Eyes, my father calls them.



I think they are a nice assortment of McNallys. Counting the one at the top, I have six altogether, so I can choose which one I think best fits the casting I'm submitting for. That's almost a McNally for every day of the week. Monday through Saturday, and then for Sundays, I can use this one:

Smartphones are making us dumb...

On my way to the audition at 20 Jay Street, I realized a little too late that my iPhone had given me the wrong directions, prompting me to get off the F train at Jay Street-Metrotech and walk fifteen minutes back towards Manhattan. If the people at Apple really wanted to make the Apple update appealing, they would have made Siri a 56 year old New Yorker who knows the quickest way to get anywhere, when taking the bus just isn't an option.

Once my GPS confirmed that I was going the right way, I put the phone back in my pocket and began the walk back up to DUMBO, occasionally checking the map on my phone as the uber-hipster landscape began to unfold before me. Then, as I passed Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, I came to 20 Jay Street.

Now, I had read the email several times. I knew that this was the address. But since I got my iPhone, I have gotten into the habit of glancing at emails, websites, maps and messages without actually absorbing any information, knowing that I can just look it up. Someone will invite me out to a restaurant and I don't even look up what neighborhood it's in until I'm already on the train.

So though in my heart I knew that this was the right building, I still felt the need to check my map and confirm. The phone caught on the edge of my pocket and I felt the tell-tale yank on my headphones that signifies, "you are about to drop your very expensive phone."

Not to worry, I bought a cushion-y case to shield Tim the iPhone from my frequent dropping.

Then, I watched in horror as Tim the iPhone skidded across the cobblestones, and landed with a PLOP in the middle of the only puddle on Water Street. (The irony occurred to me only after I'd finished crying hysterically.) At least three people witnessed its demise, and all three of them stopped to offer their sympathies. New Yorkers might be callous and hard about most things, but I guess some pain in universal.

But one young man went above and beyond. He was walking behind me when it happened, and rushed to my side immediately. As I stood, completely shell-shocked, trying to wipe the phone off on my sleeve, he took me step-by-step through exactly what I needed to do to save my phone.

Turn it off immediately. DO NOT turn it back on.
Get some uncooked rice, and put the phone in it. The rice will absorb all the moisture.

"Don't lose hope," he said, "it might be okay."

And then he was gone. He's pretty much responsible for the successful recovery of Tim the iPhone (spoiler alert--he's as good as new). Wish I could thank him, but I don't know who he is.

Now, I've heard of the rice thing before, but I was so completely shocked that I never would have thought of it. So I raced into the nearest Organic Produce and Grass-Fed Meat store, bought a $5 bag of rice (thanks hipsters) and stuck my phone in it. I tied it up in the recycled plastic bag and buried it deep in my purse along with my feelings.

And then I was alone on the street. I didn't know what time it was, nor what floor of the building the audition was on. I couldn't call to ask, and the building's fancy touch-screen directory yielded nothing. I couldn't call my Mom and cry to her, and I didn't know where the York Street subway stop was. And Oh my God what if something happens to me and I can't call 911? Immediately I felt like a target for muggers and murderers (at noon on a Tuesday) as if there was a big sign above my head that read, "Can Only Call For Help Vocally."

And then I remembered: The world has existed without cell phones. When people actually had to make plans ahead of time, pick a place to meet and actually be there on time. When we didn't call each other from across the mall to say, "I'm by Maternity. I see you, turn to your left and walk straight." We used our voices and waved our arms, remember?

Furthermore, I remember the world without smartphones, when people actually had to retain information, like where subway stops were. And if you were watching TV and saw an actor you knew from some other movie, you couldn't just pull out your pocket-sized computer and gain access to a whole list of everything they've ever done. You had to remember or it would bug the crap out of you.

I checked that email four times and I still didn't trust that I knew the address.

Is this what I've become? Someone who can't remember a brunch date without a little reminder that pops up while I'm playing DoodleJump? Have a really lived in New York my entire life and still don't know how to find the freaking F train?

I found the York Street subway stop on my own, went back to Midtown, crashed The Boyfriend's office and threw myself into his arms. Then, with an hour and a half until I had to be at work, and no way of knowing when that hour and a half would be up, I went to Starbucks ordered a Grande Bold and I realized:

I need a fucking watch.

Urban Dictionary Number Three

Never let it be said that Pete and Josh don't know how to seize an opportunity.

The annual Doritos "Crash the SuperBowl" contest has come around, and they decided to make an Urban Dictionary-themed entry.

The term is Dorit-O-Face, and if you'd like to know what it means... see for yourself:

DORIT-O-FACE 002 from josh apter on Vimeo.

Halloween 2011

If this whole acting thing doesn't work out, maybe I have a future in costume construction.


This is me as Dani from HBO's Game of Thrones.

And this is The Boyfriend as Ser Jorah Mormont.